Friends and Family Donate Teabags

In 2013, while preparing for an exhibition of recycled materials in New York, Ruby Silvious started to create art using discarded items like pistachio shells, the inside of eggshells, and used tea bags. “After a few failed experiments with tea bags, some of the miniature watercolour paintings began to look interesting,” says the author of a coffee table book, 363 Days of Tea: A Visual Journal on Used Teabags. In 2015 she started a project called 363 Days of Tea, a visual daily record of her impression of the moment, using the emptied-out tea bag as her canvas. While she drinks at least a few cups a day, her friends and family regularly donate to her collection. “So, I don’t have to rely on my own consumption for art materials.” It’s the different sepia stains left on the teabag paper that are a source of endless inspiration for her. “Unlike watercolour paper, tea bag paper is thin and porous, which can make watercolour hard to work with. It takes practice and a lot of control over your medium to get used to it. Other than that, the used tea bag is quite resilient. It can be folded, rolled, and ironed. I’ve used them in collages, printmaking, papier-mâché, and origami projects. And because they’re such small canvases, they’re light and portable. They’re an ideal medium to use for art residency projects where you have to travel quite a distance.” She uses watercolour and ink, for the most part. She has tried acrylic, intaglio inks (printmaking), and colour markers as well. Her work has been recognised with various awards and she regularly holds group and solo exhibitions in NYC. Any favourite tea bags? “I use the kind that’s made of filter paper or paper fibre. Some tea bags are made of polyactide (PLA), a bioplastic. I do not use these.” Plus, she advises not to display the works in direct sunlight to prevent fading.